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Add dark damage to your weapon if possible, and you should also wear dark resistant armour. Use Estus only after he has commenced a moveset and you are out of reach otherwise he is likely to leap over to you.

Evade. You can evade all of his attacks, and the charged form of him (in the second part of the fight) is actually easier for evasion. Your Agility better to be at least 96-99. He is not hard after you learn his moves. Unless you use some greatshield with great stability you as well may forget about trying to block him.

And I hope you dispatched at least 2 of the Ashen Idols that surround the arena, they heal him.

I think all DLC bosses fights are designed for evasion rather than for blocking, the same thing was in the Artrias of the Abyss DLC for DS1.

Remembered the first rule of Dark Souls bosses: Easiest way to win is to summon someone who's better at it then you.

I discovered recently (after beating all of the DS1 DLC bosses in NG+ without summons and without shield as well) that satisfaction after you beat a boss and DLC all by yourself is like 10 times bigger. They are surprisingly easy after you take time and learn all their moves, even if they seem absolutely unbeatable initially.

The Fume Knight is perfect for training coz it's just a dozen feets from bonfire.

I discovered recently (after beating all of the DS1 DLC bosses in NG+ without summons and without shield as well) that satisfaction after you beat a boss and DLC all by yourself is like 10 times bigger. They are surprisingly easy after you take time and learn all their moves, even if they seem absolutely unbeatable initially.

The Fume Knight is perfect for training coz it's just a dozen feets from bonfire.

With no enemies that aren't easily avoidable between you and him. That's a sign the boss is going to be a major pain, cause From usually doesn't shy away from making getting to the boss a major pain.

The make up for it though. Switches attack modes halfway through, and practicing vs that one becomes an endurance contest.

Unrelated thought: There are a lot more NPC invasions in Scholar then in vanilla. That by itself is pretty cool, let offline players get some of the real Souls experience. Programming in the gloating use of emotes by those NPCs if you lose - well, real Souls experience indeed.

But then I saw the Maldron the Assassin invasion in Brume tower. Programming your NPCs to gloat like dicks is a nice touch, but From has gone above and beyond by programming an NPC invasion that actually acts like a human dark souls invader dick, hiding behind a corner to ambush, running away after taking a single hit then hiding with the monsters? Programming an NPC to behave like a troll invader to drive player into rage? That's dedication to your craft.

But the fact that From recognizes that their playerbase tends to behave like dicks now and then, and are capable of emulating that obnoxious behavior in their NPCs? Given 'drive players to raging insanity' seems to be the entire goal of the series, I'm concerted about DS3. They've always been willing and able to infuriate, and they're getting better at it.

If there were any one thing I greatly disliked about DS2s DLCs (olol), it would be this. The bosses hit like Mack trucks, all have a wide variety of attack patterns, and sport at least 3x the amount of HP of the baseline bosses. Spending a good 8 minutes whittling away their health while skipping along their far too narrow margin of error is a little too much stress, not enough fun.

Even with half the HP, those bosses still would've been the most difficult in the entire series. As is, it's a little ridiculous.

Reading through this makes me want to play through DS2 again. But unfortunately for stupid me, I accidentally forgot to back up my saves before resetting my computer, and...

...yeah. I'll have to restart. Not really looking forward to slogging through things I've already slogged through. Though maybe I could use it as an excuse to try a pure caster for the first time.

Have you enabled cloud save? If you have purchased SoTFS then your DS2 save game won't work anyway.

I picked up SoTFS on the recent steam sale. I know I should be playing a lot of my other games but I Just can't seem to put this thing to bed. One of the main reasons is that I am playing through it for the first time as a spellcaster, which when combined with the new content really makes it a special experience again. It's really interesting seeing how the different sections play out. As you might expect, this makes some encounters (including boss fights) much easier or more difficult, requiring very different strategies to succeed.

And Maldron was a chicken compared with that SOB Thomas from the Sunken King's Crown.

Spending a good 8 minutes whittling away their health

8 minutes mean you use a non adequate weapon, should be at least 2 times shorter. Difference between different kind of weapons (effects) and/or magic in boss fights can be drastic. Though a good collections of upgraded different weapons compatible with character in NG is usually quite uncommon.

He's doing roughly the same damage I was in those videos, though he's being considerably less cautious. I think that's my problem right there. Need to NUT UP AND KICK SOME ASS!

On another note, I started my caster just a little while ago. I can understand why some people call it DS: Easy Mode. I've been trolling the cyclops just beyond the first bonfire in the Forest of Fallen Giants for souls, and haven't even broken a sweat yet.

Just got absolutely pwned by the Lost Sinner on NG+2, Champion's Covenant. 15 attempts or so. The fight had virtually 0 difficulties on my previous runs (with a summon). She's easy by herself but the 2 pyromants that join the bitch and no helping phantom make the fight more difficult than Manus or Kalameet from DS1 DLC, at least for me. I was extremely unlucky a few times though, I don't see a safe way to dispatch the pyros at least without magic. When I go for them, the bitch catches me up in 90% of tries.

On another note, I started my caster just a little while ago. I can understand why some people call it DS: Easy Mode. I've been trolling the cyclops just beyond the first bonfire in the Forest of Fallen Giants for souls, and haven't even broken a sweat yet.

Hah. That's exactly what I did. Some parts are definitely more difficult however and so you should definitely invest in some decent weapons for when hand-to-hand is the only option. I've been using the firesword nearby throughout most of the game so far as its incredibly fast (which you need for most of the invaders) and does decent enough damage once upgraded. Despite being a spell caster I've also upgraded my Strength to 20 in order to use the Zweihander (with imbued Magic) against opponents with greater reach or HP.

That's probably what I need to do. Thus far, I've been stuffing all my points into intelligence, faith, and attunement. Being a caster is fairly easy overall, but it's not perfect for all scenarios. If you end up getting swarmed in a tight area, you're pretty well screwed, since casting requires a bit of distance between you and your target to get the most out of it.

Though this might not be a problem once I start building a better library of spells. From what I remember reading, hexing is all about taking out large groups of tightly packed enemies. You might be able to build a caster for all occasions.

Hexes deal dark damage, not physical. In DS1 they did physical/magic combined.

Yes, my mistake. When you play both games one immediately after other, they start to mix up. F.e. I often try to equip the child's mask or grass crest shield, then I realize they're from other game.

PS: Hurray, just finished the Lost Sinner. It took about 20-30 tries until I realized that I actually shouldn't try to kill the pyros before the Lost Sinner, and suddenly the fight from nearly impossible became quite easy. Before that, I exhausted all possible ways I could think of trying to kill the pyromants first.

Just finished Scholars minus the DLC content and as others have experienced I found the game much easier as a mage/hexor than playing through it with a melee build. I'm looking forward to see how challenging the DLC areas will be this time though.

While I really enjoyed Scholars I must say that I was disappointed to get the Nashandra ending rather than the Aldia one. I got interrupted during a conversation with him at the Dragon Shrine and gave the wrong answer which unwittingly resulted in the same old ending. After the dlc it's time to put DS to bed until DS3 so I'll have to watch it on youtube I guess

It doesn't matter what you say to the Scholar. The conditions are: 1. You have to speak with him in all 3 places and exhaust all dialogue. 2. You have to kill Vendrick. If these are done, he will appear after the Nashandra fight.

So, if you want to check out the new ending, you have to kill Vendrick, then burn a Bonfire Ascetic at the King's Gate, and fight the Throne Guards and Nashandra again, to get Aldia and the option for his ending.

Thanks Malleus, that's good to know. Prior to getting Scholars I had recently completed the DLCs and the main game at NG+. Nashandra is a real pushover on NG so it will be good to have more of a challenge this time.

Incidentally, when I played the DLCs I was already into a NG+. Will the DLCs be less of a challenge on NG or doesn't it work that way?

Incidentally, when I played the DLCs I was already into a NG+. Will the DLCs be less of a challenge on NG or doesn't it work that way?

They will be less challenge. Intensity of a bonfire is absolute indicator.

I'm looking forward to see how challenging the DLC areas will be this time though.

DLC enemies including bosses have huge resistances to sorcery/hex/lightning/fire. So I believe you actually will have harder time in DLC compared with melee builds, contrary to the main game.

PS: Beat Smelter Demon 2.0 solo on NG+2 and it actually was much easier than Fume Knight (solo too). Smelter took more time only because of the way to him, damn that Iron Passage. Soloing DLC bosses is so much fun (after you beat them ).

I reached the second bonfire in the Frozen Eleum Loyce (i.e. Ivory King DLC) on my first attempt without dying and with only using 2 potions, so it's definitely much easier this time round. I've just remembered that this is actually the final DLC and now realise that I don't have any of the other keys for the first 2 DLCs. While I'll probably play through this first anyway now, I've just googled the locations of the missing keys and the method for getting these are pretty damn obscure. I would imagine that there's a good chance that many new players would probably finish the game without ever stepping foot in any of the DLC worlds. Are there any hints provided in the game as to their existence?

Hints? I don't know, maybe those friggin giant locked doors behind two of the mandatory lord bosses? And behind that shrine you literally bump into on your way to the castle? Hard to notice, yeah. As for the keys, if you explore thoroughly, you'll end up finding them. The DLC areas are nowhere near as hidden as the Painted World, Cainhurst Castle or Oolacile.